This is part two about when labels are actually helpful and necessary. Here is my post from yesterday in which I was musing about the times when a label actually helped rather than hurt (or just annoyed me). In general, it’s in the medical field when I find useful. If there’s something wrong with my body or my brain, it’s a relief to know what that is. It’s easier to treat something if you actually know what that something is (and you don’t think it’s all in the patient’s mind).
It’s also helpful when it’s something like autism that marks me as different (though not ‘defective’ as health issues might). I cannot tell you the relief I felt when I realized that much of what I thought was wrong with my brain was in fact something medical (as autism is). It didn’t mean that I wouldn’t have to deal with it (because of course I would still have to do that), but it meant that it was something that was just different–not necessarily wrong.
I think if there’s one thing I could convey to other people who are different for various reasons that have nothing to do with good and bad as defined by Christians, you are glorious the way you are. That’s not to say that you won’t have to mask at times or that you’ll never have to smooth your edges to get along with society, but it is saying that much of that is arbitrary and there may never be a legit reason for it.
One thing I think people who are neurodivergent often have to do is calculate how much of the weirdness they want to let out and at wwhat cost. This is especially true at work, which, by the way. I have a gripe (because of course I do).
There’s been a movement to bring your whole/authentic self to work. It was supposed to mean that people who were minorities and (including neurodivergent) should be able to be more themselves at work. Meaning that they should not have to heavily mask all the time. Or, as a very basic example, black women should be able to wear hairstyles that are a part of their culture without getting punished for it.
It was not nor has it ever been a way to say that everyone should let it all hang out at work. I am so frustrated that this is what people now think it means. “No one wants to see someone’s ugly side at work!” Well, no, but that’s never what it meant in the first place. It was supposed to be a way for minorities to feel less burdened at work for being so different than the norm.
I know that’s how these things work on the internet, though. The least-generous interpretation of a term (read, the one that the majority fixates on) is the one that eventually wins out and becomes the definition of that term.
Sigh.
Anyway.
I realize it’s still difficult for me to really let my guard down with people because I have had negative reactions to the real me more often than not. I’m not just a little different–I’m a lot different.